


Why Swinging Around a Greatsword Five Days After Major Surgery Is the Best Decision You've Made This Week: A Novel by Gladiolus Amicitia

by MagitekUnit05953234



Series: It's Not a Literal Novel [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Awkward Noctis Lucis Caelum, Chronic Pain, Ficlet, Gen, Gladio is in bed literally the entire fic, Hysterectomy, Ignis is kinda done, Not Actually In The Fic But It Is Talked About, Not nearly as angsty as the summary makes it sound, Oops, POV Second Person, Surgery, They never say gladio's name in this i just realized, Trans Gladio, Trans Male Character, brotherhood era, like he never even stands up he is just chillin, needles mention, this is actually probably as close as i will ever get to writing chill xv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 23:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14629002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: You couldn’t care less about being injured.You care far more about what said injury prevents you from accomplishing.You’re a bit of an idiot.





	Why Swinging Around a Greatsword Five Days After Major Surgery Is the Best Decision You've Made This Week: A Novel by Gladiolus Amicitia

**Author's Note:**

> If I look at this thing any more I may end up deleting the entire thing and scrapping this idea so... just take it from me. I kinda hate it but I didn't wanna give up on it so I got it out.  
> This is a side story of sorts set in the same universe as Why Using Healing Magic on a Head Injury Is a Terrible Idea, taking place in early Brotherhood era (Noctis is about thirteen here, so it's before he "meets" Prompto in 751 but several years after he covers for Iris in 745)  
> It's very apparent here that I am no good at writing Gladio, but I tried my best. As a result of my general inability to write Gladio this thing has about 5% the internal monologue that Why Using Healing Magic on a Head Injury Is a Terrible Idea had and also ended up being more of a ficlet than a fic since it's only like 2000 words. My apologies.  
> A proper sequel to Why Using Healing Magic on a Head Injury Is a Terrible Idea is coming, I promise! ...Just not right this second. It should be of a higher quality than this since we'll be back Prompto POV stuff, so at least there's that!!

In hindsight, someone probably should have seen this coming. You were never one to sit still or take breaks, and you say as much.

“That doesn’t make it acceptable,” Ignis sniffs, all formal at fifteen years old, standing at the end of your hospital bed practically oozing disapproval. “You have written instructions not to lift anything more than fifteen pounds or engage in any strenuous activity for five weeks. Despite that,” Ignis spreads his hands —palms up— in front of himself. “Here you are.” 

“Yeah yeah,” you idly fidget with the remote that adjusts the angle of your bed. “Trust me, I’m just as disappointed as you are.”

“Not in your self preservation skills,” Ignis adjusts his glasses. “Rather, in your inability to bounce back from something you consider to be an inconvenience as opposed to an unavoidable medical issue.”

He has you there. You couldn’t care less about being injured. You care far more about what said injury prevents you from accomplishing. You’re a bit of an idiot.

Ignis’s phone chimes.

“Don’t you have something better to do than get on my case?” You watch as Ignis draws his phone from his pocket and begins typing away. His brow furrows. “You look busy.”

“I don’t have a meeting for another two hours,” Ignis replies seamlessly, eyes latched to his phone’s display. Somehow he manages to both be completely engaged in you and whatever royal problem he is attending to now at the same time. Kid’s a machine.

Ignis’s gaze flickers up after a moment and he quirks an eyebrow at whatever expression must be gracing your mildly drugged face right now. “Aren’t I allowed to be concerned for a friend?”

“I’m fine,” you roll your eyes and move to stretch your arms above your head: a habit now impeded by pain spiking through your abdomen. You try to mask your grimace as you bring your hands back down. “Give me a day and I’ll be back out there. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed by taking some advil and waiting a few hours.”

“You’re insufferable,” Ignis puts his phone down beside your blanketed feet and —with a second’s hesitation— sits himself down beside it.

“I can’t get anything done just laying here,” you grab one of the multiple bottles of lukewarm water that have been left at your bedside and twist the lid off and on. “Shields don’t get sick days.”

“Surgery isn’t exactly the common cold,” Ignis levels you with a stern glance and you resist the urge to laugh at his unintentional hypocrisy. Ignis had worked through pneumonia during his birthday last year and complained the entire time he was on bedrest. If he remembered the event now, he made no indication. “You can train again once you’ve recovered. I doubt Lady Iris wants to take up your mantle because you decided an extra hour of swinging a sword around was worth death by internal bleeding.”

“I’ll stop trying if you agree to take off work  _ and _ school next time you get sick,” you grin as Ignis blushes, a faint red creeping down his neck. So he  _ does _ remember.

“I can make no promises,” Ignis clears his throat and adjusts his glasses again. “I am eternally on call for the Crown.”

“There’s been a hundred ‘n twelve kings before now who managed without Ignis Scientia for eternity,” you take a sip of water. “Hundred ‘n fourteen can manage for a few days if you get pneumonia.”

Ignis laughs drily. “Hundred and fourteen painted over another report yesterday. I think Ms. Lutum might commit treason if His Highness so much as looks at a paintbrush again.”

In a push to make Noctis focus more on his responsibilities, his tutor had somehow pulled enough strings to have all the tools for his favored leisure activities taken from him: his comic books, his video game consoles, his television, his allowance. Even his phone had been downgraded to a particularly expensive variety of a simple flip phone. Both you and Ignis assumed it wouldn’t work. You were right. Noctis took up drawing and painting with a vengeance and then proceeded to destroy council records, training weapons, his chamber walls, and even some of his clothing in the name of art.

“Was it any good?” You ask, resting the mouth of your water bottle below your bottom lip.

“Pardon?”

“The painting,” you elaborate. “You said he painted over a report again.”

“It was quite good,” Ignis sighs. “It was Insomnia from his balcony at sunset. His command of color was brilliant.”

“You should frame it.”

“I would have preferred him reading the report.”

Your abdomen aches and you rest a hand over it, not quite willing to see what will happen if you press down. “Remind me why I can’t just chug a few potions and get back to it?”

“Surgery is already taxing on the body,” Ignis’s phone chines again and he takes it back into his hand. “It’s best to let it heal naturally. Curatives get less effective with time, anyway. They wouldn’t help you now.”

You give an exaggerated groan and lay your head back on your pillows. The room is filled with the sound of breathing and the occasional tone from Ignis’s cell. It’s probably the most peaceful time you’ve ever spent in the Citadel’s infirmary. Ignis’s presence at the foot of the bed is oddly nice.

“His Highness wants to know if he can visit,” Ignis pauses his incessant typing and simply stares at his phone for a moment.

“Why’s he asking you and not me?”

“Gods know,” Ignis stands suddenly and brushes imaginary wrinkles out of his jacket. “My council meeting has been moved up. I have to leave. Do you want Noctis to come by?”

You would much sooner have Ignis’s company, but dealing with the tentatively royal human incarnation of teenage angst was preferable to being left alone. “Sure.”

“I’ll let him know,” Ignis begins to leave, but casts a glance back at you. “Do tell me if you need anything. I’m sure this isn’t easy.”

He leaves and you occupy yourself with trying to locate your phone. As it turns out, it had been left on the far end of the bedside table, behind three additional water bottles and a book you had in your bag when you left for training this morning. It’s still fairly charged, which is a miracle with the way your battery tends to drain these days. There are several messages from Noctis, asking why you’re in the infirmary again. Another set is from your father, who seems utterly resigned about your inability to follow medical advice at this point. Iris has sent you a link to a cat video.

You ignore your dad and open up the video link. It’s a ten minute compilation of cats getting themselves trapped in boxes. You sit through the whole ten minutes, telling yourself you’re only watching it to appease your sister.

The door of your room glides open and Noctis peeks in, squinting at you. You raise a hand in a lazy wave.

“You literally had an entire organ ripped out five days ago and you’re trying to train,” Noctis slouches into the room and offers no additional greeting. “That’s stupid. You’re stupid. If you die, I’m killing you.”

“Good luck with that,” you grin. “You’ll have to beat me in a fight first.”

“Won’t be hard if you’re already six feet under,” Noctis moves toward your bed then stumbles, eyes wide, as his leg buckles under him. He manages to regain his balance and takes a moment to breathe.

A sharp pang of worry cuts through your lungs and settles somewhere between your ribs. You tamp it down as well as you can. “Are you alright?”

Noctis snorts, clearly trying to mask his frustration with facetious apathy as he straightens back up. “I’m not the one in the infirmary, am I?”

“Right now, we’re both in the infirmary,” you observe, watching Noctis as he takes a few deliberate steps forward then executes a faux-casual lean against your bed. “Are you wearing your brace?”

A pause. Noctis clears his throat then mutters out a quick negative.

Gods help you, keeping this kid alive is going to take everything you’ve got, isn’t it? Forget your own self-preservation skills, Noctis’s lack of self-care is particularly astounding. If it weren’t for how miserable he had always looked when you saw him around the Citadel in his wheelchair, you’d almost think he  _ wanted _ back in it by the way he adhered to his recovery efforts (that is to say, not at all). 

“My advice goes without saying then,” you press the up arrow on the remote for your bed and it hisses as it gradually props you up a little more. “But in case you’re too lazy to parse it from the atmosphere,  _ wear your Shiva forsaken brace _ .”

“Don’t go swinging your sword around when you should be healing, then maybe I will,” Noctis leans a little more on the end of your bed.

“You and Specs both,” you can’t believe this. “He said the same thing.”

Noctis breathes out a vague approximation of a laugh. “Did you bring up the pneumonia?”

“’Course I did.”

Noctis slowly slides more and more onto your bed, alleviating the strain on his bad hip and leg. You pretend not to notice, scrolling through  _ Insomnia Times _ ’s website instead.

There’s no pressing news...not that you need a newspaper to know the really newsworthy stuff. Being a Shield does have its perks and one is having easy access to information the public might not have. “So, since when do you seek  _ me  _ out?”

“Oh,” Noctis freezes, his right foot just barely dangling off the ground. “I just…” 

There’s a shift of blankets and weight at the foot of your bed. You raise your gaze in time to see a flash of blue light shattering around Noctis’s hands. Held delicately in front of Noctis, a canvas has appeared from the void. Noctis rarely ever uses his arsenal, saying that it was a struggle to use even on good days. You wonder if it’s easy today or if he  _ really _ didn’t want to walk through the halls with a painting in hand. Probably the latter, just in case his tutor saw him. “I kinda… have something. For you. I know that you’ve been here a lot lately and… hospitals suck especially when you’re always there.”

Noctis falters, his eyes darkening for a moment. He shakes his head and holds the canvas out to you, painted side facing away. “I made you this. If you want it, I guess. Because… hospitals. Yeah.”

His Highness’s eloquence knows no bounds.

The boy in question drops his painting on your lap then scrambles up, stumbling his way to the door on stiff legs. “Anyway, I’ll see you later. Thanks. Bye.”

You turn the canvas over in your hands to see a landscape. A haven stands, glowing softly in the night, a plume of smoke rising up to the stars above. Rock formations rise along one side while flat, empty desert sprawls out beyond the other, rendered in careful, accurate brushstrokes. Noctis somehow managed to depict Palmaugh Haven at night despite never having been there. Maybe he found pictures of it online? It’s far too exact to be something he imagined. 

You run your hand over the canvas, feeling tiny grooves where different layers of paint overlap. When you were a kid, your dad would take you out to Palmaugh to camp sometimes. You told Noctis once that that was your favorite place to be. In between the prince’s training sessions and physical therapy, you had talked a lot to fill in his silence. Somehow, he remembered and made you this for… for what? 

Damn. 

It’s not often anyone gets to see anything genuine beneath Noctis’s blank veneer of both emotional and physical lethargy, and here you have it.

You thank him through text message, and his reply consists entirely of him calling you stupid for thinking that training post-hysterectomy wouldn’t get you hurt. In that weird awkward feelings-phobic manner all thirteen year olds seem to adopt at some point or another, Noctis managed to show he cares.

Maybe you ought to be a little more careful to spare him the worry.

Yeah.

Shields have to be strong enough to protect their king. You’ll only crack if you don’t take a break, and a broken shield can’t protect a damn thing. Maybe a few weeks of taking it easy would be good for you...

You glance back down at your phone.

**You (6:03 PM)** I’ll take a break since you asked so nicely.

**HRH Noctis (6:06 PM)** good. try not to die

**You (6:07 PM)** I’ll still be checking up on your training, though. You don’t get out of it just because I’m off on medical.

**HRH Noctis (6:07 PM)** yeah yeah

**HRH Noctis (6:08 PM)** wouldnt expect anything else you absolute behemoth

**HRH Noctis (6:08 PM)** hey one more thing

**You (6:09 PM)** Yes?

**HRH Noctis (6:09 PM)** does that hormone stuff you take really involve you stabbing your ass with a needle or is that fake

**You (6:10 PM)** The hell told you that?

**HRH Noctis (6:10 PM)** SO ITS TRUE

For fuck's sake.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants a timeline of Gladio's whole transition stuff (I leave it pretty vague here) it's probably like  
> Coming out: 9 years old (742)  
> Hormone blockers: 11 years old (744)  
> Hormone replacement therapy: 13 years old (746)  
> Hysterectomy: 16 years old (749)  
> Anything else (like top surgery or whatever) is either unwanted or unnecessary due to the early start of blockers and T. I haven't put too much thought into that.  
> I figure that Gladio's so certain about it and that doctors in Lucis aren't as gatekeeper-y as they are here so they give things a pretty accelerated timeline by American healthcare standards. I'm sure being the future Shield of the King helps.  
> Oh and that thing at the end about stabbing yourself in the ass with needles is inspired by my own life... hormone replacement therapy is a wild ride, folks. My friends like to laugh about it  
>   
> Follow me on Twitter [@compromisedunit](https://mobile.twitter.com/compromisedunit)!


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